Austin Friars

Members of the Augustinian Order first arrived in England around 1249. The Augustinian Friary in London (customarily abbreviated as Austin Friars) was founded in the 1260s. According to John Stow, the friary was established by Humphrey de Bohun, 2nd Earl of Hereford and Essex and Constable of England, on his return from the Seventh Crusade. (Stow gives a date of 1253, but this appears to be too early, as the first verifiable reference to the friary dates only to around 1270; sources from the 1250s omit any reference to the Austin Friars.) It was built on Broad Street in the north of the City of London, on land acquired from (probably) two older churches. St Olave Broad Street appears to…

The friary was constructed over time, as the availability of money and land permitted. The church's nave and the other friary buildings may not have been completed until after 1350. The friary precinct was entered via at least three gates, the main one of which was located on Throgmorton Street and gave access to the church and churchyard. The friary church stood at the centre of the complex. The Crown gave the friary six oaks from Windsor Forest in 1277, possibly to provide wood for the roof, while bequests in the 14th century (including one by a descendant of the friary's founder) show that construction continued into the 1370s. The nave of the church survived until it was destroyed in…

Today the site is divided by a road named Austin Friars. The site is mainly occupied by office blocks. However, the Draper's Hall and the Dutch Church still stand here, separated by the road, although both buildings are replacements for earlier buildings (and for the one destroyed in the Blitz, in the case of the Dutch Church).